God and Creation

Sermon preached at Templederry, Nenagh and Killodiernan on Sunday 8th February 2015, the 2nd before Lent year A

I want to share with you some thoughts about God and about Creation, because that is the common theme of today’s readings

When we look about us at creation - at this amazing living world and the wider heavens - how can we feel anything but awe and wonder? It is natural for us as human beings to interpret it as the work of a mighty creative God. The Psalmist captures this in beautiful poetry (Psalm 104:26-37):

‘O Lord how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.’

God in his wisdom has made his creation comprehensible to us through logic, mathematics and science. Thanks to science we now comprehend so much more about creation than the Psalmist ever could. We can now see that creation is not a once-and-for-all thing, but an unending process starting from the ‘big bang’ at the dawn of time, and continuing still into the distant future.

I do not consider myself an old man, but in my own lifetime we have discovered how the material universe evolves: we are literally made of star-dust – the very elements of this earth came into existence in the explosive deaths of generations of stars. And in my own lifetime we have started to unravel how the subtle biochemistry of DNA has allowed teeming life to evolve on our planet.

Some people like to say that this new science is incompatible with the idea of God, but I disagree. I think that’s poppycock! For me it makes God’s work of creation even more marvellous. Evolution is the mechanism God uses in creation – and God has not finished his creation yet.

The OT reading from Proverbs (8:1, 22-31) introduces us to God’s Wisdom.

God’s first creative act was to create Wisdom, we are told. And Wisdom has remained beside God ‘like a master worker’ throughout creation.

I like to think of Wisdom as like the laws of nature, God-given. The laws of nature make continuing creation through evolution not just possible, but inevitable.

Cosmologists have been surprised to discover that the laws of nature seem to be very finely tuned to allow the evolution of a universe like ours, with life like ours. Some have proposed what is known as the Strong Anthropic Principle, that the Universe is compelled, in some sense, to eventually have conscious and sapient life emerge within it.

Perhaps we should see this as God’s Wisdom at work: Wisdom tells us, ‘I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race’.

But there is more to creation than physics and biochemistry.

Ours is also a moral universe. We human beings have been created as souls with a moral sense of what is good and what is evil, and a conscience which prompts us to choose good over evil. We can distinguish between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, beauty and ugliness, love and hate. Yet all too often we fail to choose wisely and do what we know we shouldn’t. We are imperfect beings, incomplete, not yet finished by God – that is what the idea of original sin and the myth of the Fall is all about.

It is not true, as it is sometimes said, that nature is always red in tooth and claw – there is more to life than a vicious struggle for existence. Communities of plants and animals live together supporting each other. Think of the intricate three-cornered dance of life between plants like plums and apples, the insects that pollinate them in return for pollen and nectar, and the animals that disperse their seeds in exchange for the fruit. Think of social insects like ants and bees, how virgin sisters devote their lives to raising their queen’s children. Think of the altruism and unselfish love of which we human beings are capable at our best.

This shows me that God is still at work, creating a moral universe in which good triumphs over evil. Shall we call it the Kingdom of God? Perhaps the Kingdom is an emergent property of creation, necessarily arising out of evolving life, just as life necessarily arose out of the physics and chemistry of matter. If so, the potential for it has been there from the start, a consequence of God-given laws of nature. It has evolved gradually in many species. We see it dimly and imperfectly in our human natures. And we may believe that it will become ever brighter and more perfect as God works his purpose out through creation.

Why should this be so, I ask myself? The answer I think is this: Just because God is good, and God prefers all that is right and true, beautiful and loving.

The moral universe – the Kingdom of God - is what matters to both St Paul and St John.

Both of them place Jesus Christ at the heart of the evolving moral universe, much as Proverbs places Wisdom at the heart of the evolving material universe.

In Paul’s letter to the Colossians (1:15-20), Jesus Christ ‘is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation … through (whom) God (is) pleased to reconcile to himself all things… by making peace through the blood of his cross’. In John’s Gospel (1:1-14) Jesus Christ is the eternal  Word: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … he gives power to become the children of God to all who receive him, who believe in his name’.

Theirs is a deep theology, and I am no theologian. But one key message I take from them is this:

God offers through Jesus to complete his creation of us in his image to be part of God’s Kingdom.

The big question for each one of us is this:

Will we accept God’s offer?

If we want to be a part of the Kingdom of God – the emerging moral universe filled with all that is good, right and true, beautiful and loving - then we must start with Jesus. If we want to be reconciled to God, then we must start with Jesus. If we want to become children of God, then we must start with Jesus.

Because in Jesus, ‘the Word (becomes) flesh and (lives) among us, and we (see) his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth’.

Remembering - and the kingdom of God

An address given on Sunday 14th November 2010, the 2nd before Advent, Remembrance Sunday, at Templederry & Killodiernan.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Rev F A O (Derick) Sanders CF(EC) in battledress

Today I wear a poppy in my father’s memory.
He was dragged - unwillingly - into the maelstrom of the 2nd World War. As a Chaplain to the Forces he landed in Normandy on D-day, he was there at the crossing of the Rhine, and he ended up in the ruins of Berlin. He spoke little about his experiences, not to me or to most others I think - but he was marked by them. He felt it right to wear the emblem of a poppy on Remembrance Day, in memory of his comrades who died, and in memory of the scenes of murderous destruction he had witnessed. I thank God that my life has not been scarred by war in the same way his was.

Many people choose to wear a poppy today, but not all do. And we should be mindful of the sensitivities of others, particularly here in Ireland. It is surely right to remember our family and friends who have suffered in war – for they are part of us. It is right to remember the horrors of war – lest by forgetting we allow them to happen again. And it is also right to support the charitable work of the Earl Haig Fund.

But how we remember is important, I think. Jesus proclaims, ‘the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news’ (Mark 1:15). War is the very opposite of the kingdom of God. Our remembering should be mingled in equal measure with repentance. We need to repent the very human tendency - which we all share - to hate those not of our tribe, to treat them as enemies, who all too often we seek to kill and maim in war. And we should not let others manipulate our remembering to reinforce the tribal instincts that promote war.

Let us join together in faith and penitence in a minute’s silence, in remembrance of all those who have died, been maimed or suffered in war; men, women and children; whether military or civilian; on whichever side, and on no side.

Ever-living God, we remember those whom you have gathered from the storm of war into the peace of your presence; may that same peace calm our fears, bring justice to all peoples and establish harmony among the nations, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

What a beautiful vision of the kingdom of God Isaiah (65:17-25) paints in today’s OT reading!
The Lord is ‘about to create new heavens and a new earth’, says Isaiah. ‘No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.’ It will be a place of peace, in which, ‘the wolf and lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox’. ‘They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord’.

For the Jews of Jesus’s time, the holy mountain was Mount Zion, one of the hills on which Jerusalem is built, with the Temple at its summit. Herod the Great had extended, adorned and beautified the Temple in the years before Jesus was born. Judging by the remains excavated by archaeologists and descriptions from the time, it must have been a stunning building.

I imagine that visitors must have seen the Temple as like a foretaste of Isaiah’s new creation, a model of what the kingdom of God would be like when it was realised on earth, a monument to peace and plenty for all.

But Jesus did not see the Temple in this way, as the NT reading (Luke 21:5-19) tells us.
For Jesus the kingdom of God that he cares so passionately about – his kingdom – is not built of stones, no matter how magnificent. His kingdom is not of this world, as he later tells Pilate at his trial. He recognises that the Temple with all its sacrifices, priests and temple-taxes is an unsustainable burden on God’s people. And he knows, as we do, that all material things turn to dust in the end. So when he hears some people admiring the magnificence of the Temple, ‘how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God’, he publicly foresees its utter destruction. And of course he is proved right – some 40 years later it is indeed destroyed in the course of a Jewish rebellion against Roman rule.

Some who were listening to Jesus miss his point completely. They ask him to tell them how to know exactly when this destruction will happen. Many people in Jesus’s time were just as consumed with apocalyptic fears about the end-times as some folk are today. But Jesus will have nothing to do with it - he does not feed their fears. Instead he warns them not to believe people who claim to be able to forecast such things. And he tells them not to fear that the end is imminent, even when they hear of awful events, such as ‘wars and insurrections’, ‘earthquakes’, ‘famines and plagues’.

Then with amazing frankness, Jesus uses the occasion to teach his disciples what is in store for them, and in a strange way to reassure them.

Jesus knows that the political and religious authorities are determined to get rid of him, to put him out of the way. The end game is upon him – in just a few days he will be seized, tried and executed on the cross. And then the authorities will turn on his disciples. ‘Before all this occurs’, he says, ‘they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name’.

But Jesus promises to help them to hold on, to stand firm and testify to the values of the kingdom of God which he has taught them – that is what matters, whatever may befall them. ‘For I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict’, he says. ‘You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls’.

I put it to you that Jesus’s disciples in all ages – including us – should be reassured by his words. Jesus will help us to proclaim the values of the kingdom of God. It may be that in Ireland today we're not likely to be killed for sticking up for the kingdom of God, though we may very well suffer in other ways. But that is our duty as disciples. Desertion in the face of the enemy is shameful. By our endurance we will gain our souls.

To suffer or die for the kingdom of God is not the worst thing that can happen to us.

Choosing your team

An address given at Shinrone and Aghancon on Epiphany 3, 25th January 2009.

You can hardly have missed all the fuss surrounding Barack Obama’s inauguration as 44th President of the United States!

We certainly didn’t in my house: my wife Marty is a dual Irish-US citizen and actually voted for him, so immediately after his inauguration speech we toasted him with a glass of champagne!

Perhaps you too have a special interest in him – while Moneygall have claimed him as a native son, I’ve heard rumours that his earliest traceable Irish ancestor really came from Shinrone!

There is such an outpouring of emotion about Obama, not just in the United States but right around the world. I find it both heart-stirring and also a bit scary. He has great charisma. His words speak to American hopes for an end to division and a return to peace and prosperity. They speak to all of us, I think. But I fear too many see him as a Messiah who can deliver the change they voted for in the twinkling of an eye. How can he possibly live up to their expectations? And how will they react if he doesn’t?

When a leader takes on a great mission, two of the many things he or she must do are these:

First, to find words clear and simple enough to inspire people to achieve his mission – in horrid business jargon, that’s a vision statement.

Second, to choose the team that is needed to implement the vision.

This is what President Obama has been doing over the last few weeks of transition. His inauguration speech is in effect his vision statement. Very wisely he has tried to use it to manage the expectations of the American people. And he has been choosing the team who will make up his Government and implement his vision.

And surely this is just what Jesus did as well, at the very start of his ministry, as Mark tells us in today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1:14-20).

As Mark tells it, Jesus first went to be baptised by John the Baptist in the Jordan - perhaps that is when he got the first inkling of his own significance. Driven by the spirit, he then spent 40 days being tempted by the devil in the Judean desert – perhaps this is where he refined the vision that would define his mission. Only when he learned that John the Baptist had been arrested did he actually start his ministry in Galilee. Only then was the time right for the kingdom of God to come near.

Today I’m going to reflect both on Jesus’s vision statement, and how he chose his team, because I think there’s a lot we can learn from them.

Mark summarises Jesus’s vision statement, in these few words: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Mark has so compressed Jesus’s vision that I find it is not easy to grasp the meaning straight away. Let me try to unpick it.

Jesus sees that the time is right for his great mission, which is to lead every one of us into the kingdom of God. In other words his mission is to show us all how to be the men and women that God wants us to be. It is in fact no less than the salvation of humanity.

What prevents us from being the people God wants us to be? We are all created in God’s image, and in our heart of hearts we can all tell right from wrong, can't we? – in other words we are souls with consciences. But we all know only too well - it is a matter of observation, if we are honest with ourselves - that nevertheless we repeatedly do what we should not do and do not do what we should do. In other words we all sin; some more and some less, but we all sin. And that sin cuts us off from God’s kingdom.

Jesus teaches us that God loves us, every one of us, as a father loves his children. More than that Jesus teaches us that God like a loving father will forgive us our sins and give us entry to his kingdom. All we have to do is to acknowledge them and repent - of course we must really mean it, we must truly repent. This is the good news that Jesus proclaims and asks us to believe.

‘Repent, and believe in the good news’ sums up Jesus’s vision for every one of us.

Mark also tells us how Jesus chose his first followers, Simon and his brother Andrew, and James and John the sons of Zebedee.

The other three Gospels have similar stories, and no doubt Jesus called the rest of the Twelve who he would send out as apostles in much the same way.

Let us think a bit about the men that Jesus picked out to be his very first followers. Here are some things I notice about them.

First, notice who they are: they are ordinary folk, working fishermen. Like Jesus himself, they aren’t part of the Jewish elite; they are neither learned nor wealthy. They are part of that honourable class the common people. Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘God must love the common people – he made so many of them.’ Jesus clearly did.

Notice what they are doing when Jesus calls them: they are just going about their ordinary day’s work, catching fish and mending nets. If we are alive to God’s world and listening for him, his call may come to any one of us, at any time, in any place.

Notice how Jesus calls them: he simply says, ‘Follow me!’ I don’t imagine this is the first time they have seen Jesus. No doubt they had stood in the crowd and listened to him. Perhaps they had lingered afterwards and talked to him in person. Whatever, they must already have been captured by his charisma – if Obama has charisma now, then I think Jesus must have had it in spades! Their response I feel sure is an emotional one, not an intellectual one. It is love that draws them to the person of Jesus, not his arguments, just as love has drawn so many to him ever since.

Lastly, notice what Jesus offers them: a task to do. He calls them not to a life of contemplation, but to a life of service to others, as ‘fishers of men’, in that lovely phrase from the King James translation. It is a task in which they will spend themselves, burn themselves up, and in the end die for his sake, and for the sake of others. It is also a task in which they will find eternal life in God’s kingdom.

So to conclude, among the things we can learn from Jesus’s vision statement and his choice of disciples are these:

• We should listen well to Jesus’s words, ‘Repent, and believe in the good news’, because they sum up his vision for us.
• And we should try to model ourselves on Jesus’s first disciples. They are ordinary people, just as we are. Like them we should stay alert and open for Jesus’s call. It may come anywhere, at anytime. It is a call to love, to love him and to follow him in his life of service to others. It is a call to enter the kingdom of God.